“That flesh is grass is now as clear as day,
Death cuts it down, and then, to make her hay,My Lady B– comes and rakes it up.”
Death cuts it down, and then, to make her hay,My Lady B– comes and rakes it up.”
For grief is dark, and care is sharp,And life wears on so wearily.Oh! take thy harp!Oh! sing as thou wert wont to do,When, all youth’s sunny season long,I sat and listened to thy song,And yet ’twas ever, ever new,With magic in its heaven-tuned string—The future bliss thy constant theme.Oh! then each little woe took wingAway,…
A tender infant with its curtain’d eye,Breathing as it would neither live nor dieWith that unchanging countenance of sleep!As if its silent dream, serene and deep,Had lined its slumber with a still blue skySo that the passive cheeks unconscious lieWith no more life than roses—just to keepThe blushes warm, and the mild, odorous breath.O blossom…
Thronging shadows cloud the light,Like the advent of the night,—Colder, colder, colder still,Upward steals a vapor chill—Strong the earthy odor grows—I smell the mould above the rose!Welcome, Life! the Spirit strives!Strength returns, and hope revives;Cloudy fears and shapes forlornFly like shadows at the morn,—O’er the earth there comes a bloom—Sunny light for sullen gloom,Warm perfume…
With all the dark solemnities that showThat Death is in the dwelling!Oh, very, very dreary is the roomWhere Love, domestic Love, no longer nestles,But smitten by the common stroke of doom,The corpse lies on the trestles!But house of woe, and hearse, and sable pall,The narrow home of the departed mortal,Ne’er looked so gloomy as that…
And used to war’s alarms;But a cannon-ball took off his legs,So he laid down his arms.Now as they bore him off the field,Said he, ‘Let others shoot;For here I leave my second leg,And the Forty-second Foot.’The army-surgeons made him limbs:Said he, ‘They’re only pegs;But there’s as wooden members quite,As represent my legs.’Now Ben he loved…
‘Oh where, and oh whereIs my bonny laddie gone?’_Old Song_.One day, as I was going byThat part of Holborn christened High,I heard a loud and sodden cry,That chill’d my very blood;And lo! from out a dirty alley,Where pigs and Irish wont to rally,I saw a crazy woman sally,Bedaub’d with grease and mud.She turn’d her East,…
My blood before was thin and coldBut now ’tis turn’d to tears;—My shadow falls upon my grave,So near the brink I stand,She might have stay’d a little yet,And led me by the hand!Aye, call her on the barren moor,And call her on the hill:‘Tis nothing but the heron’s cry,And plover’s answer shrill;My child is flown…
CHARITY’S perennial treat;Thus I heard a Pauper say:—‘Ought not I to dance and singThus supplied with famous cheer?Heigho!I hardly know—Christmas comes but once a year.‘After labor’s long turmoil,Sorry fare and frequent fast,Two-and-fifty weeks of toil,Pudding-time is come at last!But are raisins high or low,Flour and suet cheap or dear?Heigho!I hardly know—Christmas comes but once a…
Singeth bright ApolloIn his golden zone,—Cloud doth never shade him,Nor a storm invade him,On his joyous throne.So when I behold meIn an orb as bright,How thy soul doth fold meIn its throne of light!Sorrow never paineth,Nor a care attainethTo that blessed height.